The Sac'a'rith (27 page)

I sighed. Had I known they knew about the gate, I could have used it and spent the night back on the ship in the comfort of my own bed. “I don’t know how long I should stay. I have not found anything here to help me. I had hoped there would be something that would give me a clue,” I said.

“You mean, to help you find Narcion?” he asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“This,” he said, and gestured to the area around us, “represents Narcion’s past. He left us long ago, and I doubt there will be much here to help you find out where he is.”

“So he did not come back here on occasion?” I asked.

“No, not at all. Why do you think that he did?” he asked.

I explained to him how Narcion would disappear for extended periods of time. “So when I found the gate in his quarters, I just assumed that this is where he used to go.”

“I can see why you would think that, but there is no reason to assume that the gate you came through can only come out here. There are two kinds of gates: those like the one Narcion has here always connect to another gate at the destination, but the pairing is variable; any two gates can be joined at any time,” he said.

“What about the other kind?” I asked.

“The other kind can only be crafted by a master wizard or master sorcerer. It can open a portal anywhere and does not need to be linked to another gate. Narcion is many things, but a master wizard is not one of them,” he said.

I thought on that awhile. It made some kind of sense, but all this magic stuff was too new for me to really follow. I decided to trust his opinion. “How did I end up here, then?”

“Well, as I said, none of us has managed to get this gate to work. It requires a command word to activate, and then you need to know where you are going,” he said. “How did you know the command word?”

I explained to him what had happened when I’d touched the gate and he was quiet for a while. “How long have you been his apprentice?”

“Apprentice? I suppose I am; I have been working for him for several years now,” I said.

We talked for a while about my life with Narcion. He did not seem to understand all the words I used. Basic words like ‘blaster’ and ‘computer’ seemed to be unknown to him, but I assumed that this was due to an imperfect transfer of my language to him. I was still unsure how that language transfer had happened, but I was grateful it had; I could imagine how much harder this trip would have been without it.

I decided that I had told him enough and needed to start gathering more information. “I need to ask you a question,” I began, with the intention of asking what the Sac’a’rith were.

Before I could ask it, he pointed to the sky and called for the others. There was some kind of light above that shone briefly, but it faded before I could get a good look at it.

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“Trouble! We need to move quickly!” he called out as he leapt from the porch and ran towards the forest. Fiercewind and Ragnar came running from the house and followed him into the woods. I was not sure what to do, so I followed them. They were moving very quickly through the woods and not making a sound. I had a very hard time matching their pace, and if it were not for the length of my legs I probably could not have.

We traveled for more than half a day until we came to a clearing, in which were more men who appeared to be the same race as, and were dressed similarly to, Stormblade, Ragnar, and Fiercewind. These men were fighting a pitched battle with a mixed group of races, one of which was the same kind we had fought with earlier. I did not recognize the others. My three companions gave a battle cry and charged into the fight.

I hesitated at the edge of the thicket and tried to understand the battlefield. With the addition of the three who had come with me, there were a couple of dozen people fighting against a force with superior numbers. They were all using primitive weapons, and I did not see any ranged weapons. The group attacking Stormblade’s family was definitely inferior in skill but made up for it with their numbers, and two of them were quite a bit larger than an average human. The two larger ones were definitely swinging the fight in favor of the attackers. It seemed to be only a matter of time before Stormblade’s people were routed.

I decided that if Stormblade was Narcion’s brother, then Narcion would want me to help them. I just wished I had my assault rifle with me. I drew my swords and slowly walked out into the clearing, moving towards the largest two attackers. They were maybe a head taller than myself, and had substantially more girth. They wielded large, spiked clubs that looked like they could easily turn a man to pulp.

I batted aside several smaller attackers and gave a low growl. The big aggressors both turned to move on me, and I let the rest of the battle fall away from my concentration. I bent my knees and crouched down as they came towards me. As they closed in, I launched into the air with a great cry and slashed down hard on one of their necks. My blades bit in deep, and flesh tore violently as I ripped them out. I leapt back out of the way before the second one could react.

I spun back towards the second one as the first fell. If killing his partner affected him in any way, he did not let on; he just charged towards me as if nothing had happened. He swung his great club at me, and I dove to the side and rolled clear. At two-and-a-quarter meters tall, I was not used to fighting someone substantially taller than myself. His reach was sufficient to keep me at bay, even though his speed and grace were desperately inadequate.

Donovan had tried to teach me to use an attacker’s size and strength against him, and Narcion taught me to move like air so that I was never there when the attack came. Against this opponent I would need to combine those tactics.

I waited for his swing, and as his great arm went by I slipped out of its path, flowing out of the way like smoke and letting the swing’s momentum carry the great club past me. I came back up on the other side of his swing, slicing with my sword upwards, cutting a deep gash into his upper leg. That caused him to scream in pain and lose focus long enough for me to reverse my swing and slash down at an angle, cutting deep into his neck. I spun off that blow and brought my other sword around in a guard in case another attacker charged in.

I turned towards the battle to see Ragnar and Stormblade running towards me, but they came to a halt as my opponent slammed onto the ground and did not move.

“It looks like you don’t need our help after all,” said Stormblade.

“They were big, but slow and stupid,” I said.

I charged back with them into the heat of the battle, and now I was once again the largest combatant. The reach that the swords gave me over my knives made it virtually impossible for the smaller and lesser-skilled attackers to get close enough to me to score a hit. I decided that I really preferred the swords and I would use them in place of my knives from then on.

With the fall of their two champions, and the addition of my swords, the tide of the battle turned in favor of the defenders. The attackers were eventually routed and fled into the woods. Some of the defenders gave chase, but most stayed behind to tend the wounded.

I cleaned my blades and leaned against a tree. I needed a moment to come down from the emotional high of the fight. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me what is going on?”

“What do you mean?” asked Stormblade.

“This is the third time we have been in a fight since I arrived. I assume that is unusual,” I said.

“Oh, yes. Well, it is normal at present, but I can understand your point. Humans are expanding in the west, and that is driving creatures like these into our forest. Our numbers are too small to hold such a large area indefinitely, so we will probably end up falling back to the mountains in the east. At the moment, though, we only have problems near our borders,” he said.

“I see,” I said. I was not sure how to take all that, but they seemed like decent folk. “I am going to head back.”

“It is very late in the day. You won’t make it before dark-fall, and this close to the border it is not safe to travel at night. We have an outpost nearby; come stay with us and return in the morning.”

“I think I will be fine,” I said.

“Zah’rak, you don’t know these woods. Please trust me and we will personally escort you back in the morning,” he said.

I looked at the pile of bodies around me, and the strain of the battle combined with a poor night’s sleep made me reconsider. I figured one more night would not change much. “Fine, but what do we do with the bodies?”

“Leave them for the scavengers. They are but empty husks now,” he said.

I could not understand how they could be so emotionless about the bodies of the fallen. Even slaves did what they could to respect the bodies of the dead. I supposed that, on a purely practical level, they were right; the bodies were just so much organic waste now, but still they used to be friends and allies.

Fiercewind was among the wounded unable to walk. They were forming makeshift stretchers, but even as they worked the sky was starting to darken. I offered to carry him to save time and he protested about me having to carry his weight, to which I responded by sweeping him up with one arm and tossing him over my shoulder. “You’re even lighter than you look,” I said, to which he merely grunted.

We traveled for a couple of hours through the forest, and it was nearly full dark by the time we reached the outpost. This was a large, stone structure, lit with the same kind of lamps as I’d seen in Narcion’s home. There was no sign of computers, or power of any kind, anywhere. I was beginning to suspect they did not have anything like that here.

Once all the wounded had been placed in a building to recover, we gathered in a common area for dinner. This was a stew of some kind made in a large pot over an open fire. There was much chatter around me, but none of it in a language I understood. Only Stormblade, Ragnar, and Fiercewind could speak my language, so that made it awkward at times. I heard my name mentioned a few times so I assumed they were recounting the battle, but that was just a guess.

That night I had the dubious pleasure of sleeping on the ground again, as their beds were no better than those Narcion had. I was not asked to stand watch this time, as there were plenty of men to keep a round-the-clock guard. I lay there staring up at the stars, wondering if I would ever find any answers.

The next morning I was surprised to find Fiercewind walking around, talking with people. Many of the others that were wounded were also up and eating breakfast as if they had never been injured. I joined them at breakfast, and Fiercewind said, “Thank you for the lift last night, Zah’rak.”

“It was nothing. You don’t even weigh as much as some armor I have had to deal with,” I said. I decided I would not ask about his recovery, as it was a distraction from my main purpose. I was hoping to head home today and come up with a new plan to find Narcion.

“Zah’rak, I’m sorry you had to sleep on the ground again last night. I promise, if you give us more warning before you visit next time, I will ask someone to make you a proper bed,” said Stormblade.

“It’s fine, but I am eager to get going,” I said.

“All right. Give me a few minutes to find Ragnar and we can be on our way,” he said.

We left as soon as they were ready. As we left he argued with one of the guards for a time, but I could not understand what he was saying. We walked through the forest in silence for a while. I drew on
the energy
of the forest to help compensate for the lack of rest and the aches and pains of fighting hard and sleeping on the ground. Eventually it occurred to me to ask Stormblade, “If you have to fall back, what will happen to Narcion’s home?”

“We will have to destroy it,” he said with great sadness.

“Maybe I should bring some of his personal belongs back with me, then,” I said.

“That might be wise,” he replied.

We stopped about midday at a stream to replenish the canteens we had brought with us from the outpost, and to cool off a bit. The water was not as clean as I was used to drinking, and my stomach did not seem very happy with it, but it was cool and wet after a long morning of walking. The others did not seem bothered by the water, so I said nothing about it
.

I was not carrying much, nor were Fiercewind or Stormblade. Ragnar had a large pack, but I did not know why. If we needed to lug gear out here for some reason, it would have made more sense to share the load, but I said nothing; I just wanted to get home. This planet was merely a distraction now that I knew Narcion was not here.

“We should reach Narcion’s house by the middle of the afternoon,” said Ragnar.

“I suppose that means you will stay there again tonight?” I asked.

“More than likely,” he said.

Once we were back underway again I asked, “Narcion spoke a lot about a group called the Sac’a’rith. Do you know anything about them?”

“Not much. He claimed he was the last of them, and that his mission in life was to restart the order when the time was right,” said Stormblade.

“So it does not refer to your family, or local tribal group, then?” I asked.

“No, we had never heard the term before he mentioned it. Let me guess: he told you that you were the first of the new generation of Sac’a’rith?”

“Yes, but he never got a chance to tell me what that meant,” I said.

“You are a magus, or you could not have operated that gate. You’re at home in the forest, and fight like one of the forest people. You can commune with the trees and the forest trusts you. What else can you do?” he asked.

“I do not know. Where I come from, magi are a new discovery and people are still guessing what to do and how to do it,” I said.

“You fought that sorcerer with your eyes closed. Why was that?” he asked.

“Narcion calls it ‘Sight.’ I can see things with my eyes closed that I cannot see when they are open. It comes in handy when fighting creatures that can hide,” I said.

“I have heard of some great warriors that can do that, but never a magus,” said Ragnar. “Though, in general, great magi do not fight often with physical weapons.”